The Trump Administration: The Clusterfuck Continues

The BBQ Pit
781

Trump supporters. Just … Wow.

[METAPHOR MODE ON]

It’s as though they slept through the totality of the Prosecution’s case in a criminal trial. Having just woken up, they are now paying rapt attention to the Defense Attorneys and the compelling tale they tell.

When it’s time to deliberate, there is simply No Question In Their Minds: the defendant is NOT guilty. They can’t even imagine how the rest of the jurors could possibly vote to convict. They are outraged at the mere mention of the idea.

If only they’d bothered to hear both sides of the story.

Like the rest of us have. The rest of us have heard everything they have. They’ve only heard a fraction of what we have.

We’ve all heard from Trump, his numerous surrogates, AND his revolving door of attorneys Every Single Day, telling us in excruciating detail … why he’s simply not guilty of anything, why it’s all a “witch hunt” or “lawfare,” and how desperately unfair it is.

Shockingly, absolutely none of it has the ring of truth. Because … facts. Law. Evidence. The whole story. The things we heard, but they actively ignored and hand-waved as [wait for it] “FAKE NEWS!”

[METAPHOR MODE OFF]

Profound tribalism and intractable confirmation bias – easily identified by the red hat, sized so deceptively that it restricts blood flow to the brain.

It really isn’t their friends, their neighbors, their colleagues, or the Democrats who are looking down on Trump supporters, laughing at them behind their backs, and calling them stupid.

It’s the places where they get their news and the people to whom they keep writing checks.

Useful idiots, indeed.

782

(Post shortened by me, since I only wanted to address this aspect of your post)

You are aware that Trump has started rooting out civil servants who didn’t vote for him, or don’t appear to sufficiently be his lapdogs, and wanting to replace them with people who are more loyal and willing to enact his agenda, right?

But, please, tell me how it’s the Left that suppressing and eradicating dissenters.

783

Oh. One more – largely, because I like you. I find you reasonable, well-informed, and maniacally focused on objective facts and reality (/s):

What’s amazing is how often we have/had Trump in his own words, on tape, or video evidence of the 1/6 insurrection, or the transcripts of Trump’s “perfect call” with Zelensky, or the phone call with Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger: “I just want to find 11,780 votes.”

Or the tapes of interviews with Bob Woodward.

Or the Access Hollywood tape.

Or “I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

And the bombshell revelations from the Dominion lawsuit.

And the Mar-A-Lago documents case, including the audiotape of him sharing the military plan for invading Iran (at Bedminster).

In every single case, Trump’s supporters will tell us that we’re wrong … that we didn’t see or hear what we thought we saw and heard. With our own eyes and ears.

“Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim’s mind. Typically, gaslighters are seeking to gain power and control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and intuition.”

Trust your eyes. Trust your ears. Don’t trust the propaganda and outright lies that come from the MAGA crowd, Trump’s lawyers, and the craven media handmaidens enabling them.

And never let them tell you what is and what is not evidence of a crime. They have absolutely no idea. The legal troubles of Donald J. Trump overwhelmingly prove one thing: his supporters understand the law only about as well as they understood Public Health, Virology, Infectious Disease, Vaccinology, and Epidemiology.

Cheers!

784

785

This

contradicts this

The latest idiot whom I quoted just above is far away from useful.

And this is why I refer to them as magaflatearthers.

786

Isn’t it a little hypocritical for MAGAs and what’s left of the Republicans to call liberals hypocritical?

My cite: Republican behavior that even predates Trump. One example is McConnell not allowing hearings on Garland’s Supreme Court nomination because it was an election year (the election was like nine months away) and then fast-tracking Amy Coney Barrett’s (35 days before the election). There are probably too many Lindsey Graham examples to count. Hypocrisy seems to be a defining characteristic of most Republicans now.

It’s all psychological projection (every accusation is a confession) and IOKWARDI. Talk about a lack of self-awareness. What’s worse are the Republicans who are aware but put power and/or relevance above the country. Graham is a prime example of this sort. It’s one thing for Graham to have been a beta tagalong to actual alpha male John McCain, but quite another to be a lickspittle for someone like Trump.

787

This is the most gobsmacking part of it to me. I can almost understand their hatred of Democrats, but I will never understand idolizing that festering blight on humanity.

788

Yeah; one of the things that has surprised me about the Republican leadership is how quickly and completely they rolled over for Trump. I fully expected their complete lack of scruples and empathy, but not their utter lack of pride or spine.

789

It’s not that they want to follow Trump. It’s that they’re terrified of what his followers will do if they don’t.

790

:roll_eyes: John McCain was just another Republican who was lucky enough to dodge the current unpleasantness. If he’d lived he’d be a nobody who was retiring like Romney, only good for the occasional pointless anti-Trump soundbite.

791

Same here. It’s also why I coined the expression “evolve into vertebrates”. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any chance in such an occurrence.

792

Just another Republican? How many Republicans endured torture as a POW and refused early release. Whether you liked him, or his politics, or not, I would say he had more honor and principles than any current Republican today. His thumb’s down vote helped save Obamacare, which seemed to also serve as a direct fuck you to Trump.

Here’s a clip of McCain defending Obama during a town hall when they were running against each other:

Flashback: McCain tells supporter Obama is 'a decent…

I would also say that there is zero chance Trump would ever behave in a similar manner. We’ve seen for his whole life he would not.

Compare and contrast. One person came from a family with a history of high-level military service and served the country since being a plebe at Annapolis (where, according to the book The Nightingale’s Song, he was a natural leader/alpha male among his peers and would defend plebes from hazing by upperclassmen). The other person is a draft-dodging, bullying, odious con man who only cares about himself and is happy to flush the country down the toilet if there if any benefit at all to himself. The list of despicable Trump traits and actions is too long to list here.

793

And Murkowski…and Collins…

McCain’s reputation as a ‘maverick’ was overblown.

Yes, he had a few high profile votes that bolstered his cred but he was a solidly reliable vote for his party.

Mostly it was things he said or did before things came up to a vote that gave him his reputation. When it came down to actual yes/no votes, he could be relied upon by his party, as could those other two, except when it came to the ACA vote, which even many in their own party probably wanted to turn out that way.

794

I blew my nose a few minutes ago. The sticky wet tissue I dropped in the waste can had more honor and principles than any current Republican today.

795

The Republicans as a whole are craven. To to hear congressmen and women say things like it’s not their place to question Trump’s nominations is ridiculous. It’s like, where’s their own sense of self-respect? You’re a representative in the House, a duly elected official in your own right, not Trump’s personal servant. At least pretend like you have a backbone and aren’t a willing lickspittle to a man child.

Part of what I don’t get is how fear motivates these politicians. Even when you capitulate, Trump will continue to humiliate you publicly. You’re just going to die a little each time you interact with him. But I guess if you’re craven enough you’ll crawl on your belly to keep your job.

796

I’m a Marine. I Can’t Get One Part of the Pete Hegseth Hearing Out of My Head.

[NB: The author calls the M1 Garand ‘bolt action’. I mention it here only because someone will point out that that is incorrect.]

Everyone in the military chain of command swears an oath to the Constitution that requires them to disobey unlawful orders—and to be very clear, a mass shooting conducted by the government against its own citizens is definitely that. If the secretary of defense is unwilling to fulfill that oath in contradiction of a commander in chief who demands absolute fealty from his subordinates, it will fall on the uniformed career service members to uphold the Constitution and ensure that the military is not unleashed on American civilians. Although individual service members are legally authorized to use force in acts of self-defense against an imminent threat, an order to fire on civilians would be not just unlawful—a violation of the rules for the use of force—but a war crime under the laws of armed conflict.

The article covers the argument made upthread by me and others.

Trump could try to persuade Guillot by offering a preemptive pardon or could relieve and replace him with a loyalist military officer, who would then communicate it to a Joint Task Force commander operating in a U.S. city, who would face a similar obligation to disobey the unlawful order. This could go on until, eventually, it reached a 19-year-old enlisted service member who would have to make the final decision while standing in a line in riot gear, barely able to breathe through his gas mask, his view clouded by tear gas, the American citizens he had sworn to protect in his crosshairs.

As I said, we covered that. I just wanted to make a comment the first quoted paragraph. Government soldiers fired on civilians, killing five and wounding six, in Boston in 1770. Yes, an officer and eight soldiers were put on trial but… How did the results of that government attack on civilians work out?

797

There was also the time Gen MacArthur ordered two generals to lead forces against…check notes…US military veterans camped out in DC who were demanding vet benefits.That didn’t go well for the current US pres.

798

And not just vote them out.

Mitt Romney spends $5K a day on security for himself and his family since the Jan6 insurrection. Most congresscritters don’t have that kind of scratch. He has said some of his colleagues would like to defy Trump, but are too worried for their lives and those of their families to do so.

And when the J6ers get their pardons, that will be the signal that it’s OK to do it again.

Nazi Germany had a Reichstag. It put up about the same amount of resistance to Adolf Hitler as I expect from congressional Republicans over the next two years.

799

I thought of that too . . . but in my mind it’s McCain totally failing to stand up to religious bigotry in any meaningful way.

800

Yes, this was impressive and deserves respect. And of course he was more competent and able to serve as an elected official than Trump, which admittedly is a low bar. He also took advantage of that image as a maverick at times, and both followed and moved against his party. I’m not saying he was a bad man, but he was just a guy, and may not require automatic deference.

An interesting Wikipedia page about his public image for those interested.